Living without my scale means less stress, but requires more focus

Lisa met her goal of losing 100 pounds by her 40th birthday, but the struggle continues. Click through to read about losing the first 100 pounds or click on the links below to read about the new challenges.>>

Lisa met her goal of losing 100 pounds by her 40th birthday, but the struggle continues. Click through to read about losing the first 100 pounds or click on the links below to read about the new challenges.>>

I tried writing in this space about a month ago and got three paragraphs into it before I gave up. I just feel like I'm saying the same things over and over and not making any real changes that stick. But all I can do is try again and keep trying until I get out of this rut.>>

10/20/10

I've reset my "Get Back on Track!" month to start today. In wanting to synch up with a calendar month, I probably didn't think things through as well as I should have in planning to be very strict with my diet when I had a bunch of special occasions coming up.>>

It's been three weeks since I publicly gave up weighing myself for a year. And I'm a little embarrassed, though not devastatingly so, to admit that I've already "cheated" a few times.

I haven't been able to synch up with my friend who graciously offered to keep the scale for me, so it's still in my apartment. I slid it all the way under my bureau and back by the wall so it's out of sight, but it's not completely out of mind.

So, while I'm a little disappointed in myself that I couldn't stay off it completely, I'm also proud that I've weighed myself a total of six times. Six times over three weeks instead of six times over a single day!

It's actually been helpful to weigh myself a few times, because it confirmed that I do have a pretty good sense of how I'm doing and what the consequences of what I eat turn out to be on my body. Of the six times I weighed myself, I was able to predict my weight within a pound every time except once.

While I would love to report that my unplanned weigh-ins reassured me that I'm steadily losing weight and have inspired me to be confident that I'll continue to do so, I've actually simply been maintaining. But this is okay, too. For a few months now, I've been mostly maintaining anyway, but stressing out over it with my multiple weigh-ins. At least now, I've banished most of the stress with the same end result. And, most importantly, I'm not gaining!

In a slightly unexpected way, skipping the scale has made me more accountable rather than less so. I find myself paying more attention to what I eat and the decisions I make from meal to meal because I'm not using the scale as a gauge to tell me how I'm doing. I can't eat whatever I want and then tell myself it's okay because I happened to have a "good" weigh-in. The only thing that will help me predict my results and judge my progress will be being honest with myself regarding calories-in and calories-out.

I got a lot of feedback on my plan when I posted it, both from readers here and from some of my friends. And I'd like to reiterate that my giving up my scale is not an act of frustration meaning I'm giving up my goal to still lose weight. It's more akin to removing a distraction that was keeping me from focusing on how I feel and how I look instead of numbers on a scale.

Did you have a chance to answer my poll yet? If not, take a look and tell us… how often do you weigh yourself?

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